


have you no rebellion in your bones?

by MiniNephthys



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 19:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5140589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniNephthys/pseuds/MiniNephthys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The line, and where it was crossed for Sans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	have you no rebellion in your bones?

Kindness is often abused. Those people who are naturally forgiving of others find their willingness to forgive tested over and over again.

The same applies to laziness, though it doesn’t follow just from common sense. Those who are known to be lazy will be treated as unwilling to take action no matter what injustices are heaped upon them. It’s too much work to get revenge.

Both have a certain line past which they take action. The kind will not always sit back and let themselves be ruined, and the lazy will not always allow the cruelties of the world to continue without taking a stand.

Sans doesn’t know where that line was for Papyrus: he never saw anyone cross it. No matter what insults were hurled at him, or how poorly he was treated, Papyrus always forgave everyone on the occasions that he saw something to forgive in the first place.

Even in his last moments, Papyrus held no anger towards the human who killed him. That could have been from surprise alone, but Sans is almost certain that it was simply the type of person Papyrus was not to hate anyone, even his own murderer.

For the longest time, Sans didn’t know where his own line was. He saw monsters die on the human’s way to Snowdin, even as they played along with Papyrus’ puzzles. That wasn’t really his business: someone else would interfere. Undyne, probably. Undyne cared so much about the life of every monster that even one death would make her furious.

Then the human killed Papyrus.

Even that was not the line. It was the point where Sans could no longer forgive the human, where he could no longer stand the sight of their face and would not spend a moment near them. But it was not enough to make him take action himself. Undyne would do it for him.

They killed Undyne. They killed other monsters, of course, but they killed Undyne, the strongest hero the monsters had.

That wasn’t it, either. The human was only a child. Surely someone would stop them. Someone would get a lucky hit in.

(How many lucky hits had there been? Two? A hundred? He knows now that it doesn’t matter. Nothing would stop them.)

They killed other monsters, all the way through Hotland, through the Core, up to that hall, where Sans swallowed his bile long enough to speak to them. To pass judgment.

He doesn’t think they listened to a word.

Even then. Even then he did not attack. There had been monsters the child had spared, if only because they amused them. Besides, the king needed one last soul to free the monsters. There were still monsters left in the underground who needed freeing more than Sans needed revenge.

So if Asgore could kill them-

They killed Asgore, and passed through the barrier.

Now Sans sits in front of that barrier, watching the glow fade in and out. He can’t pass through. No monster can on their own, no matter what.

But there will be other humans. Even if he has to wait decades, Sans knows that another human will eventually fall into the underground.

And when that happens, Sans won’t wait patiently for six more.

He has someone to catch up with, after all. It would be a shame if something happened to them before Sans could meet them again.


End file.
